The project has been so successful that there is already a Tumo school in Paris and plans for others in Europe and the United States are under way.

In one of the centre's workshops, students are buzzing with excitement as they learn how to build robots from Lego kits and programme them to perform tasks like collecting rubbish or making a salad.

"We are working on projects that we will be able to later use in our everyday life," said Davit Harutyunyan, 14, as he showed off a half-assembled robot.

One third in poverty

The South Caucasus country of three million people boasts a vibrant startup scene and its tech workers have been a driving force behind a wave of peaceful protests that ousted the old elite from power in 2018.

Tumo aims to raise the next generation of tech professionals and play a role in creating a knowledge-based economy in a country where 30 percent of the population live in poverty.

"We want to become one of the world's most competitive labour markets," added Papazian, who holds a master's degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States.

The non-profit centre was founded in 2011 by Sam and Sylva Simonian, a US-based couple who are part of the influential Armenian diaspora formed largely as a result of World War I massacres by the Ottoman forces.

The school occupies two floors of a six-storey pink tufa stone building, located on the outskirts of Yerevan in the shadow of Mount Ararat which stands just across the border in Turkey.

The Simonians provided the initial investment of $60 million to set up the project but it is now largely self-sustaining, with the centre renting out several floors to tech companies.